POEMS AND PATRIOTISM

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 1, 26 September 1939, Page 4

POEMS AND PATRIOTISM

Address At Women's Social Progress Afternoon “We still love justice, fair play and good faith, and so we stand of our own free will at the beginning of a great struggle,” said Miss Mary Richmond, the guest speaker at an afternoon meeting of the Women’s Social Progress Movement yesterday, her subject being "Patriotism and Poetry.” This war was a great sorrow and disaster, but it was also a great opportunity, she said. People had been growing slack and “easy-going,” pleasure-loving, comfortable and self-indulgent, but now the call had come for effort, duty and selfsacrifice, they had happily not been deaf to the call. “We still hate cruelty and oppression,” she said. Illustrating her remarks with the quotation from Wordsworth, “by the soul only shall nations be free,” the speaker said this was achieved by showing warmth and affection toward human nature. Some of Wordsworth’s best poetry was written at a time of great stress and strain, when England was at war against Napoleon. It was not the first time that England had had to stand as the protagonist of freedom, and the poet incorporated this ideal in many of his patriotic sonnets. These held a great quality of purity and sublimity of expression. The “Happy Warrior,” published soon after the death of Lord Nelson, was one of the most famous of these poems, Miss Richmond said, and revealed that a happy, generous spirit was found among those who were brave and courageous. In a preface, the author said Nelson “was much in mind,” as he wrote it, as was the memory of his- brother, Lieutenant Wordsworth, who had been drowned in an East Indianian.

Another sonnet, unnamed by the author, had been called “Liberty and Hope” by the Hon. E. Acland, who included it in his collection of 36 immortal poems. It was full of sustaining hope, and contained the great line “Heaven lays its own honour ou man's heart.”

The speaker read several sonnets, and at the conclusion of her address was thanked. Mrs. J. Bennie and members of the former central committee were hostesses, Mrs. Bennie leading the devotional session. Songs were given by Mrs. Millward, accompanied by Mrs. B. L. Dallard, and afternoon tea was served at the conclusion of the gathering.